Jason Byers internalized targets when, as a kid, he willingly became one. As an ice hockey goalie in Pittsburgh, he found himself intercepting missiles for sport. Byers started externalizing targets when he noticed the bull’s-eye-like aspect to a screen print he’d made of Hecataeus’ flat-earth map interleaved with the United Nations’ logo. Skyscrapers, corporate logos, weapons, flags – each of these things, become a letter in Byers’ alphabet.
The targets relate to Byers long term intent to use art to defang weaponry. Previous projects include multiples of tanks, bombers and fighter jets in Sensodyne toothpaste, whose soft pinks and greens muted the destructive imagery into farce. Next was the suet tank – birdseed molded into tank shape, then photographed in various locations around Cleveland. He hopes eventually to create a full–scale bird seed tank.
Jason Byers studied sculpture at Kent State University. Although the University’s hockey team took him on, he turned his attention to the absurd, indulgent and wildly inventive arts and music scenes of late 1980’s Kent. Today Byers spends most of his time creating fine art, writing music and working as the sculpture/objects preparator at the Intermuseum Conservation Association in Cleveland, Ohio.